I expect a fair bit of the traffic will originate in Norway, rather than the UK.

The route to Stavanger has been going a long time with similar sized planes. Bergen is probably more attractive for British tourists because it's closer to the Fjords.

Bergen Oslo & Stavanger!!
 

Remember BRAATHENS S.A.F.E. (Now SAS Norway) used to operate Boeing 737-500 a/c to Oslo, Stavanger & Bergen. Lots of Norwegians visiting the area as well as outbound from Ncl. - Eastern's fares were too high to Bergen. Maybe Flybe can link into their sister companies network in Scandinavia & use Newcastle as their UK Hub for Northern routes. ?!

I seem to remember that Jet 2 were once on the Bergen route as were Wideroe.

I hope Flybe can make it work and maybe get links to Oslo and Copenhagen re-started. With the absence of a sea ferry link, reasonably priced fares for business and leisure travellers should give it a better chance than previously.


(unless of course a new ferry operator has appeared since I last checked it out)

Consider Durham Tees Valley Closure - Synergy.
 

Considering should Tees Valley Airport close, which seems more & more likely (Especially for passenger services), wouldn't the best alternative be to provide better, faster and more comfortable surface links to Newcastle Airport via Coach & Rail. In particular from the East of the region; Midllesbrough & Stockton are not served well,(in terms of Comfort & Speed) although the cost in providing better rail rolling stock, interlining with the Metro to Newcastle Airport and regular Direct Airport Coach services, would be far less than those costs associated in attempting recue of a failing Tees Airport. There may be further benefits in this approach, attracting more services to the North East's wider region, with a larger catchment population.
Both Airports receive significant support from councils & development agencies - Surely concentrating all efforts into Newcastle with better & convenient links to Teeside (only 42 miles-Stockton) would better serve our whole region.

"Synergy may be defined as two or more things functioning together to produce a result not independently obtainable" - or 2+2=6! - Sure LBA will be only to ready to promote from the south of the region!
Thoughts!

Scandinavia - Flybe
 

When Flybe set up base at NCL a few years ago they said in the press that the plan was to base upto 4 aircraft and open up new links.
They were hoping to add routes to Scandinavia and germany.

Since then all went quiet.

We got Hannover direct for a short period of time.

With flybe now looking to find money from non domestic routes hopefully this may now be the start of those promised routes.

Lets hope businesses and the local people use this route.

could we see them add the following over the next 12-18 months

Oslo
Stockholme
Helsinki
Copenhagen

Maybe even those other german routes

Hannover
Munich
Berlin
Frankfurt

What do you think?

I doubt if Hanover will come back.....it had military connections and with the UK army bases in Germany closing probably would become uneconomic to operate.

Berlin...needs to come back...maybe on Jet 2's wish list
Frankfurt I would expect LH to operate it, if it happens

Plenty of opportunities for Flybe though to Scandinavia.

Norwegian Air Shuttle (NAS)
 

Recent news of NAS plans to substantially increase their route network, possibly suggests feeder services into their Norwegian hubs: Oslo, Stavanger & Bergen.
Could this be good news for Newcastle, with eventual Low Cost flights via Scandinavia to US cities on their new 787 aircraft ( articles suggest 787's have been purchased for Transatlantic routes) Eastern's prices to Stavanger are extremely high (min. £961 rtn when I checked for the next 2 months) Regular reasonably priced service would go some where to establish links as we had with BRAATHENS.

Don't forget that Wideroe fly to Stavanger as well....4 times weekly.

I remember the daily services to Bergen & Stavanger and Oslo operated by two of Dan Air's B146's... Travelled to Bergen 3 times on it touching down at Stavanger on the way out, always used to leave NCL at around midday. It operated for years, suprising how the market changes....

I think Kristiansand and Gothenburg were planned but I think never got to fruition.

EK
 

A quick note from me on the EK passenger decreases.

I would expect the frequency increases and introduction of the A380 at MAN will be affecting the passenger side.

I know some people from teeside who prefer to get the chauffeur driven service to fly business from MAN. The main reasons are more timing options due to greater frequency and the better business product.

If NCL gets a 777 with the latest business then some of those people will probably shift to NCL away from MAN when the timings suit.

At the start of January it was mentioned in detail that Air Transat would not be operating to Toronto this summer with the service inbound via Exeter .
Some booking engines had stopped taking any bookings for the service it does however still remain on Canadian Affairs / Air Transat web site .

Is the service still operating ?

This is one for Travel Agent...is it still booking?

In regards to Air Transat, I contacted the airport itself, and they confirmed that the flights will be staying this summer running from May-Oct.

But who knows...

Michael

YYZ
 

Got told it will be operated by TCX a few weeks ago

Air Transat feature Newcastle - Toronto on their Website booking tool ( Not as "Schedule" drop down menu "service) but as "Available" in left hand pane on booking screen. - Not sure significance of this - but nearly £600 return seems steep, when booking via Manchester or Glasgow is considerably lesss expensive for same dates! - Newcastle needs direct schedule service to North America (New York) to inject some competition on routes to North America and Canada from Newcastle. Toronto is within easy driving distance from New York, and therefore routes into JFK/EWR, would also encourage operators to Toronto to be competitive to "Win" business! Dave Laws and team need to answer some serious questions on their performance to date, leading the Airport since John Parkin's departure. What have they acheived so far?! - Emirates was won by John Parkin (by the way!!) OK- John Parkin may have had his "personal" interests at heart, but growth was experienced during his time at the helm. Dave Laws has not acheived anything!- infact too much attention to Jet2 seems to have resulted in Ryanair & EasyJet being alienated.

VentureGo, do you have some sort of personal agenda against the current management, your comments seem very personally driven.

New York has been done to death on this forum and isn't going to happen anytime soon. As for It's over 800 km and your comment is not based on any factual foundation.

As for £600 being expensive the cheapest flights on travelocity for May even with KLM were between £450 and £1400 return so seems eminently reasonable for a direct flight?

Might be an idea not to name names where you choose to suggest indirectly that someone was working for their own "interests" too......

Airport Management
 

hi

i have to disagree with you VentureGo.

i think the airport are doing the best they can and i dont think they have turned all attention to JET2 lets look at this in detail and tell me if you agree with it. The airport could be worse of in the current climate..

Jet2 -
Jet2 only have UK based aircraft so when they expand NCL has a greater chance. Jet2 have the correct aircraft size for the routes they serve and i think we will see have more to come.

Easyjet -
Easyjet is a european based airline with over 30+ bases around europe.
NCL will have to beat other airports to win the spare aircraft.
NCL used to be 6/7 aircraft base.
Easyjet can make more money from other bases rather than the city breaks that were on offer from NCL hense why they moved the aircraft out.
We may see extra flights in coming years but i think it will be extra flights to spain possible a few to greece?
Think we have a greater chance to see the base becoming 2x A320 and a single A319 before a 4th aircraft returns.

Ryanair -
They seem to stuggle to make routes work.
Oslo, Shannon, Rome etc......
Main problems have been the timing of the flights but also the aircraft size.
JET2 and easyjet have the better size aircraft for NCL.
Unless Ryanair change the aircraft type or come to terms they cant fill the planes and make lots of money from NCL they wont expand.
Ryanair can make more money serving europe.
Unless they have a bloodbath with easyjet and JET2 on routes to spain??

Flybe -
Right size aircraft and hopefully we will see lots from them in next few years.
175's perfect for some of the routes that we would like to see.


Thomas Cook

Charters arent the same. We gained a 4th aircraft last summer. bookings are well down but least we have kept 4 aircraft. yes 2 of the aircraft are smaller but airport have worked well to get cosmos holidays to buy seats from them.

YES COSMOS holidays now offering flights from NCL new for Summer 2012!
EK still operating DAILY flights and should see 777's by end of year.

Ok we havent seen big increases like BRS,EDI but NCL is fine

anybody like to comment?

HH6702 - well said. I agree.